Cell counting

a cell and counting technology, applied in the field of cells, can solve the problems of time-consuming process and no morphological information for cells obtained using flow cytometry, and achieve the effect of reducing the chances of double counting

US20180217043A1Active Publication Date: 2018-08-02BIOSURFIT
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Patent Information

Authority / Receiving Office
US · United States
Patent Type
Applications(United States)
Current Assignee / Owner
Publication Date
2018-08-02

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Abstract

Systems and methods for classifying blood cells in a blood sample are disclosed. A series of frames of the blood sample as it flows through a field of view of an image capture device are captured and analysed. Advantageously, the disclosed systems and methods combine the availability of morphological cell data with the convenience of a flow-through arrangement. The classification results can be used for estimating cell counts in a blood sample.
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Description

RELATED APPLICATIONS

[0001] The present application is a continuation application of U.S. application Ser. No. 15 / 515,529, filed Mar. 29, 2017, which claims priority to a National Phase entry of PCT Application No. PCT / EP2015 / 072392, filed Sep. 29, 2015, which claims priority from Great Britain Application No. 1417178.9, filed Sep. 29, 2014, and which claims priority from Portuguese Application No. 107931 T, filed Sep. 29, 2014, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by referenced herein in their entirety.FIELD OF THE INVENTION

[0002] The present invention relates to the counting of cells in a blood sample.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0003] The counting of cells in a blood sample is an important diagnostic tool.

[0004] An example of a known approach to counting cells in a blood sample is flow cytometry. In flow cytometry, a blood sample flows through a capillary such that cells pass one by one in front of a light source and detection arrangement. The reflected and / or transmitted l...

Examples

Embodiment Construction

Part I

Overview

[0108]In this disclosure, four main processes are described which are used to obtain one of two types of white blood cell count by acquiring video frames of a sample being imaged as it flows. These two types are: differential white blood cell counts and absolute white blood cell counts. Differential counts are defined as the proportion of the total white blood cells that each white blood cell type makes up. The five types of white blood cells considered in the present case are monocytes, lymphocytes, eosinophils, basophils and neutrophils. The absolute count for a given cell type is the total number of cells of that type per unit volume of blood.

[0109]The four main processes can be summarised as follows:[0110](1) Frame by frame object classification to obtain classification results for objects in each frame of the flowing blood sample.[0111](2) Differential counts by tracking objects from one frame to the next over multiple frames to obtain an overall object classifica...